Guilty of aiding in drug case

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A 32-year-old woman cried in the dock of the Blenheim District Court on Friday as a jury found her guilty of assisting her former partner to possess $12,000 worth of methamphetamine for supply.

In order to find her guilty, the jury of 12 had to be sure that Dalliss Marie Antunovich had aided and encouraged Reuben Anthony Honan, 49, with a drug deal that took place in September 2012.

Honan, who has six pages of previous convictions, many relating to drugs, had already pleaded guilty to the same charge. He has not yet been sentenced.

During the two-day trial, Crown prosecutor Jackson Webber told the court that Antunovich had assisted Honan by making two $4500 deposits into a bank account for the drugs, by driving him to Auckland to collect them, and by assisting him as he headed south towards Christchurch, the suspected target market for the methamphetamine.

The pair, and Honan's 4-year-old son, were stopped by police in Picton on September 29, after getting off a Cook Strait ferry.

Honan's vehicle was searched, and about 25 grams of methamphetamine was found inside a plastic container, which was in a paracetamol box with some other medication.

In his closing address, defence lawyer Mike Hardy-Jones said his client had been taken advantage of by a "selfish criminal", who was the kind of man who would take his young son on a P dealing trip.

She had believed the money she was depositing was for a car, because that is what Honan told her, Hardy-Jones said.

"She didn't have the knowledge [of the drugs] and the reason she didn't have the knowledge was because [Honan] didn't want her to know," Hardy-Jones said.

Text messages between Honan and the drug supplier prior to the two bank deposits on September 24 discussed an initial payment of $9000 for the methamphetamine, with the balance to be paid later.

The payments, at different Palmerston North branches of the BNZ bank, were made within minutes of each other, Webber said.

Honan then sent a text message to the supplier saying "all done mate", eight minutes after the second deposit was made.

CCTV footage of Antunovich making the two payments was presented as evidence in court.